Above Covers Failure
by ArtandLies
Summary: She sat in a crumpled pile on the cool concrete, watching that naked ass saunter away. An invitation. A warning. - Sequel to "Under Covers Champion."
1. Chapter 1

She sat in a crumpled pile on the cool concrete, watching that naked ass saunter away. An invitation. A warning.

That ass could cure famine in Africa. Jane imagined for a brief moment what it might be like to sink her teeth into the curve just there -

Aw, hell. She was so screwed.

Things only got worse from there. Although the good doctor had seen fit to cover herself before returning to collect the flabbergasted Jane from the garage floor, the damage had been done: Jane could not unsee that ass, nor the delicious contour of the undersides of her breasts, nor even the way that Maura's hips sloped down to meet her thighs. The silk robe didn't exactly hide those thighs, either.

She was so fucking screwed, Jane thought as she replayed all of these images and put them into their respective places on Maura's now-clothed body. How could she ever _not_ envision the other woman naked under her clothes now that she knew exactly how that nakedness looked?

"Get up, Jane," Maura said as she extended a hand to the distracted detective. Jane looked at the offered hand. An invitation. A warning? She shook her head to clear her addled brain and let Maura pull her off the concrete.

She hitched her pants up as best she could without the button and allowed herself to be dragged down the hallway and through the laundry room; every surface was immaculately clean, of course. Not a hand towel out of place. Containers organized by both shape and purpose. Maura had explained that tidbit on a dreary Monday morning a few months prior. She had been so fucking excited about the "newfound efficiency in the laundry room." As usual, Jane couldn't find it in her heart to burst Maura's bubble and tell her she really didn't give a damn; the M.E. was fucking adorable when she got that excited about something ridiculous.

When they reached the kitchen, Jane placed herself safely on the opposite side of the countertop to Maura and slumped atop a stool.

"Why, uh… Why did you take those underwear off again?"

Maura shot her a quizzical look as she opened the fridge and removed a carton of eggs. "You're overly concerned with underwear this morning."

_Only when they are or are not adorning your ass, Maura,_ Jane thought and twirled her fingers in hopes of an explanation.

"You needed your shirt back. It stands to reason that you would need all other items of apparel that I borrowed as well," Maura said. She cracked an egg, then another, and drained the whites into a clear Pyrex dish. Sometimes Jane wished Maura would just tack on the "Duh, Jane" that she just knew was lurking beneath the surface.

"Oh."

Jane didn't know what to say. Her best friend had seen her naked. She'd seen _Maura_ naked. Maura had kissed her – _kissed_ her! – and she couldn't even fucking remember it. And now, despite a growing wave of attraction, Jane couldn't escape the feeling that she had somehow ruined things in a colossal way.

Why else would Maura have turned her down?

_Dammit, this is stupid._ Maura had offered a perfectly acceptable explanation for why she turned Jane down, and Jane just needed to get over it. But the surprise of it all… It was so unexpected. The things that she'd said – things she would _never_ have said aloud to another living being sober.

Jane slouched on the stool, mired in her own sense of inadequacy, and buried her face in her hands. The clangs and clatters of Maura's activities around the kitchen threatened to break her. To have not consciously understood that she wanted Maura beyond friendship, to have not understood the gravity of her own feelings – Jane couldn't stand it. She _never_ got this emotional about something so meaningless as a couple of kisses.

But, as much as she wished they had been, the kisses _weren't_ meaningless. Jane felt the weight of them coursing through her, pressing against her limbs, choking her. She wanted Maura Isles.

God, she needed another drink to get through this. Maybe she could convince Maura to make mimosas.

"Do you need to go feed Jo, or can she wait for a few hours while we get some rest?" Maura said, interrupting her somber thoughts.

_We._ Jane looked into Maura's face, an open book that spoke only of caring and honesty. _She has no idea what she's done to me._

"No. Frankie borrowed her yesterday. He's gonna try to pick up girls in the park with her," Jane said as she swiped a hand through her unruly hair. Maybe she could make Maura want her, too?

"Ah," Maura said with a nod before turning her back on Jane and continuing to beat the egg whites.

"What?"

"I've witnessed that technique a number of times," Maura said over her shoulder. "Women are drawn to babies and dogs. Gaunt's Theory of Nurturing posited that women experience a hormonal shift when they witness males in roles traditionally held by females. This shift causes…"

_Gotta get out of here. Fix this later. She'll understand._ Jane listened to Maura happily chatter at her bowl of egg whites as she crept down the hall, towards the master bedroom. She needed a few items to make her escape: a safety pin, a cell phone, and her house keys. A jacket, if she could manage. Maybe she could solder them all together into a sword and throw herself on it. _Jane Rizzoli: Ajax of the Boston P.D. _Man, Maura would be so impressed that she knew that story…

_Focus, Jane._ She tip-toed into the master bath and opened the drawer that she knew contained a variety of pins and sewing supplies, organized in size order from front to back. Why did she know where Maura kept this crap? Damn, she spent too much time over there.

_That_ would be coming to an end after last night, Jane thought as she selected an appropriate pin. Maura hadn't wanted her, _didn't_ want her. But God, Jane wanted her. How couldn't she have seen it? Was their burgeoning friendship enough to have hidden her feelings for the other woman? As she drew her pants up to fasten them where the button should have been, she heard movement behind her, and then:

"Jane."

She spun around and into a crouch, then thrust the open safety pin out in front of her. _What the hell kind of defense mechanism is that? It's a fucking pin!_ It was just Maura. She hadn't seen her in the mirrors all around. Must be getting rusty.

"Were you planning on using that as a murder weapon? Should I be worried?" Maura said, gesturing at the pin with a faint smile.

"Yeah, yeah. Laugh it up, doc," Jane said. "Just need it to fix my pants."

She slid the pin into place – easy enough to do in a shirt that didn't even attempt to cover her stomach; nothing to hinder her sight. This orange thing had to go. Why hadn't she thought to pick up her button-up – not to mention her _underwear_ – on the way out of the garage? Oh, that's right! She had been staring at Maura. Naked Maura. Naked Maura with her ass and breasts and that mouth curled into a smile just for her.

Shit. She had to get out of here. Alternating rhythms of anguish and arousal pulsed through her veins as she pointedly avoided Maura's eyes. Jane shoved her hands into her pockets and allowed the awkward silence to swell around her; it was Maura's move.

And move she did, much to Jane's surprise. She strode purposefully towards the detective and wrapped a hand around each tense arm. It's as if she wouldn't allow the awkwardness to grow any larger. That space, that arm's length, was all she would allow. Jane wondered, _Does she even know I'm feeling uncomfortable? _Probably not.

"Jane, I don't understand." Of course she didn't. Jane didn't, either. 

"I'm gonna go home. I need to sleep," Jane said with a huff. She stepped back, out of Maura's grasp. She couldn't be that close to Maura – it was too much. Too much to have been shot down by her best friend, whom she hadn't realized she had feelings for until she was half-naked, drunk, and touching her.

"You can sleep here. And you need to eat. Don't you want breakfast?" Jane watched Maura's face crumple in confusion and hurt. She _hated_ that.

"Look, Maura," she said with a sigh. "What we did last night, that wasn't exactly something that coworkers should do together."

"Coworkers?" Maura was near tears. Shit.

"Friends, I mean. Coworkers and friends," Jane corrected quickly. Where was that MacGyvered sword, now?

"I knew you would be upset. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have kissed you. I certainly should not have allowed it to progress as far as it did," Maura said. Then the tears arrived. No. No, no, no. Jane couldn't stand it, couldn't fix it just then.

"I – I gotta go, Maur," Jane blurted, and rushed past the other woman. She hastily grabbed a sweatshirt out of Maura's closet on her way out. A quick stop by the garage produced her cell phone, shoes, and keys. Throwing the sweatshirt over her head and shoving her feet into her shoes, Jane exited out the side door.

_Fuck._ What was she doing? Maura was back there, bewildered because she couldn't navigate her way around other people's emotions with a fucking roadmap, hurt because Jane couldn't sort out her own crap. What the hell was wrong with her?

Jane stood on the side stoop, surveying the tidy garden that Maura had planted earlier in the summer, trapped between the zucchini, her burning desire to flee, and a strange niggling sensation in the back of her brain; it told her to stop being an asshole, march back inside, and explain herself to Maura.

Jane glared at the tomatoes and did her best to not think of other ripe things in the Isles household. That sent her pitching headlong towards the gate that let out onto the street. She couldn't do this with a woman, couldn't have feelings for a woman. _Too complicated, Jane. _Besides, Maura could have taken the opportunity when she had it. Who knew if Maura even liked women! The M.E. had her fair share of dates with men, and though those rarely went well, she never mentioned anything about having an inclination towards T & A before.

Jane struggled with the latch – some newfangled one that Maura had asked Frankie to install after the whole debacle with her dad and the Irish mob. She knew she should go back inside and stop being such a sissy, but the urge to run, to hide from all of this was too much. Forcing the metal pieces together, she pushed, pushed again, and in a fit of mounting frustration slammed her fist into the wooden slats. _Fuck. _That hurt.

Jane Rizzoli was stuck, in more ways than one.


	2. Chapter 2

'The Incident,' Capital 'I', as Maura would later call it, was one more mishap in a week drowning in uncertainty and pained floundering.

Maura lost a body part.

She had no idea how it happened. Yoshima had asked her to sign off on his most recent lab report and Maura had dutifully snapped off her gloves, removed her gown, and followed him into the office. Never content to simply flip through the pages – regardless of her implicit trust in her assistant – she took a seat and began reading. She prided herself on thorough adherence to protocol. Dr. Maura Isles, recipient of countless awards, the only female M.E. in Massachusetts, had built her reputation upon it, and she wasn't about to let that slip now.

However, truth be told, Dr. Maura Isles wanted nothing more than to return to the morgue and lose herself in the crimson ruins of Mr. Karajah's abdominopelvic cavity that she had been excavating. Reading and rereading reports allowed for too much wandering of her ever-churning mind. Even now, as she trudged through Yoshima's records, she found an opportunity to dwell on Jane Rizzoli.

Maura sighed and flipped to the next page. It had been six days since Jane had escaped her house. She smiled cheerlessly: there surely wasn't a better word for what had occurred. Jane _had_ escaped, leaving Maura to cry her way through a dreary Saturday afternoon.

She would not return Maura's calls. She barely nodded a hello to Maura in the halls of the precinct. The likelihood of Jane strolling into her office to bring her a horrid Dunkin' Donuts coffee was next-to-none.

Maura tapped her pen against the desk in a rhythm that echoed the painful beat of her heart. She couldn't focus. She could not afford to ignore Yoshima's report, but the injurious pull of Jane obscured her ability to think rationally.

The two women had settled into a cold professionalism that was reminiscent of every failed interpersonal relationship Maura had ever had. She'd worked _so_ hard to achieve what she had had with Jane; compiled years of therapy, her own research, and practice with reading other people compounded the distress and confusion she felt now. _You have failed, spectacularly and without grace. Again. _

Maura Isles was broken. Weekly trips to the psychiatrist's office throughout her adolescence and young adulthood amounted to very little; she would never escape the effects of her psychological condition. Her emotional and social _deficiencies_. Though she could recite the proper etiquette in every imaginable social situation, she could not apply the seemingly simple theory of close relationships. Maladroit, always balanced on the precipice of saying or doing something horribly gauche, Maura consistently exhausted herself while interacting with the living.

But then, when she least expected it: happiness. It crept upon her in the style of a growing wave, first lapping at her toes, then overtaking her legs, until finally she'd been swept under by it. _Jane_.

Jane, who with an almost prescient nod of her head had deemed Maura "friend" and invited her into her world in a way that no one else had. Jane, who Maura thought to be the perfect specimen of human decency and care. Jane, who without a thought was able to express her emotions in a way that Maura could so easily interpret.

That was the worst of it, Maura thought as she scribbled a signature on the final form and dropped the file into Yoshima's outbox. She had no idea what to make of Jane's reactions this past weekend. Beyond social niceties and professional conduct, she was the sole person that Maura had ever had any real success interacting with. Jane at once comprised all of Maura's best laid plans as well as all of her deepest fears. She'd been swallowed up in the sea of Jane's explicit passions.

Their fateful evening together had become such a blight on her understanding of friendly – and romantic – interactions that Maura was having trouble piloting her way through even the simplest of memories involving Jane. At what point exactly did she overstep the boundaries? She was reasonably sure that she hadn't misread Jane for the duration of their friendship. Had she been entirely mistaken in her approximation of what Jane wanted that night? _That does seem to be the case, Dr. Isles. _

To have failed so miserably with the person that had come to mean so much to her… To say that Maura was distraught did not touch upon the grief that she felt. She was absolutely implacable. Disconsolate. Jane had become the locus of all of the loneliness and longing Maura had ever felt.

She bit her lip in an effort to stave off the tears that threatened to spill over. Thankfully, Yoshima was nowhere in sight. Maura took a moment to smooth down her blouse and skirt, tossed her hair in an effort to cheer herself up, then strode with all the confidence she could muster back into the morgue.

_Courage. Courage, Maura. This is not the first time. It may be the worst, but it is not the first time you have fumbled yourself out of a relationship._

Two gloves, a pair of safety glasses, and a clean gown later, Maura returned to the corpse lying empty on the autopsy table. She had already dissected the cranial cavity in order to discount subcranial swelling as a C.O.D.; she had only to replace the organs and restitch the Y-incision.

When she took a final inventory of the organs that she'd neatly fit back into their anatomical puzzle, a three pound, two ounce piece was undeniably absent: the liver. _Strange_.

Maura pulled her hands out of the corpse and turned to check each stainless steel container on the nearby roll-away carts. All empty. In a rising tide of panic, Maura plunged her hands back into the corpse and hastily pulled each organ aside. She dug underneath each, hoping against hope that her skilled fingers would touch upon the elusive organ.

It was not in the body. _Oh. Oh God. Oh God._

Maura click-clacked rapidly across the smooth tile to the bay of wall coolers on heels that would not allow her to move any faster. _Jane was right. These are impractical._ Jerking open each of the heavy doors one by one, Maura frantically searched for Mr. Karajah's liver. There was no feasible explanation for how the liver had gone missing, or where it might have gone.

She couldn't breathe. Her career thus far had been immaculate. A mistake of this magnitude could lose Maura her job. _Would_ lose her her job if she did not find the liver.

She needed help. She couldn't do this alone in her current state of crushing alarm; her fine-tuned sensibilities had taken leave after her weekend episode with Jane. All the pain and uncertainty of her week came crashing down around her as she picked up the morgue landline and dialed Jane's number, instantly loathing herself for it.

"Jane, I lost an organ," Maura whispered hurriedly when the detective picked up. She threw an anxious glance over her shoulder, terrified that a colleague might walk in and notice the missing organ. The thought was absurd, of course; no one but Maura herself would be able to spot something like that without a closer inspection.

"You what?" Jane barked. "I can't hear you, Maura. And I kind of have to finish this report."

"An organ! I lost it!" Maura burst into tears. She was experiencing acute symptoms of extreme stress and fatigue. Tears were a normal reaction. Still, as she listened to the rising tones of hysteria in her own voice, she couldn't help but be ashamed and embarrassed. She heard the hitch in Jane's breathing on the other end of the line, deliberated over what the hitch could mean, and decided that it must be hesitation. But hesitation due to what? _Perhaps due to my idiotic need for her._

"I'll be right down."

Despite her best efforts to stem them, Maura could not contain her tears by the time Jane exploded into the morgue, all action and bravado. Through bleary eyes Maura noted the creases in Jane's brow, the periorbital darkening, all tell-tale signs that Jane was experiencing stress and fatigue patterns of her own.

She swallowed guiltily and said, "Hi."

"What happened?" Jane asked, surveying the morgue rather than looking at Maura's tear-streaked face. The absence of warmth was so striking and unlike Jane. Maura felt it keenly, but steeled herself to ignore their tenuous hold on a friendship and instead chose to focus on the crisis at hand.

"I don't know. I opened him up, performed the autopsy as usual – you were right about the fatality of the chest wound, by the way. The bullet punctured his pericardial sac and – "

Jane rolled her eyes and cut Maura off. "The organ, Maura. What's he missing?" She stalked over to the autopsy table and stood awkwardly next to the M.E., careful to place a safe distance between them.

_It would be so easy to reach over and smooth those worry lines from her face. _Maura knew it was a terrible idea as soon as it took hold in her brain, but the tense air swirling around them clouded her judgment: it wasn't until her hand was already on a direct course for the other woman that she stopped herself turned back to the open body. Perhaps she could convince Jane to make time for that – time to rediscover what Maura was sure they had lost. For now, she had something else to find.

"His liver. I don't know what happened. I went to review a report, and when I returned to complete the procedure, it was gone."

"You know, he uh… He doesn't really need it anymore, Maura," Jane said with a shrug. She peered into the bloody cavity. "Why not just sew him up?"

"Jane!"

"Alright, alright. Just a suggestion," Jane replied tersely and lowered herself into a squat. "You got a flashlight?"

Maura nodded with a sniffle and pulled one off the autopsy table.

"You got one without blood on it, Doc?" Jane said, cringing at the rust color crusting the handle of the flashlight.

"Oh. Oh, sorry. Here." She grabbed a small, sterile Maglite and passed it to Jane. _If she has any plans to continue a friendship after last weekend, surely this will eliminate them._

Dropping to her hands and knees, Jane switched on the flashlight and pressed her ear to the floor. She looked as if she were listening for the whispered secrets of the world, completely flattened against the tile.

"Jane... What are you doing?"

"Checkin' out the floor. What does it look like I'm doing?" Jane said. The annoyance in her voice was clear even to Maura. "Maybe it fell off the cart or something." She panned the flashlight left and right, following the beam with her squinting eyes.

Maura stood next to her, feeling equal parts miserable and useless. The tears would make a reappearance soon. "What can I do?"

Before Jane had a chance to answer, the morgue door opened with a click and in walked Yoshima, completely absorbed in his clipboard. Without looking up, he said, "Dr. Isles, I processed the liver from the Karajah case. The courier is on his way to Boston U now to deliver it."

When he received no reply after a lengthy silence, he looked up from his methodical writing and into Maura's dumbfounded face.

"What?" he asked blankly. As per usual, Yoshima seemed completely unperturbed by the strange happenings of the morgue.

"You sent the liver to Boston U? When?"

"While you were looking over that report for me. It was all authorized. You signed the paperwork yesterday," he said. "Hello, Detective."

Jane rolled onto her back, clicked off the flashlight, gave Yoshima a nod, and stared at the ceiling. She made no move off the floor. Maura was grateful for her silence. She knew that Jane would hold her tongue and do her best to not alert the assistant that something was awry.

"Well then, I'll leave you to it," Yoshima said with a tinge of unease. He gave the women one last look before exiting. Maura waited until she heard the click of the door to release a moan of frustration.

A veritable deluge of anguish overwhelmed her then and she sat down heavily on the floor. Maura knew she was simply not equipped with the emotional range to process what she was feeling, and more tears seemed to be her body's way of coping. Bringing her hands to her face, she wept openly, unable to care in that moment what Jane saw, or how she might be affected by it.

When she felt a tentative arm creep around her shoulders, then another around her waist, Maura could not help but turn into the embrace. She missed Jane. She missed the unabashed closeness that Jane had demanded of her. She missed the honesty of it. Most of all, she missed the certainty of her relationship with Jane – that unbending, unquestioning certainty that had filled all the empty spaces she had accumulated throughout a lifetime of pain and regret.

When Jane placed a kiss to her forehead, Maura could not help but press her face upwards, yearning towards the lightness of Jane. Jane, the great sea change of her life. And when Jane pressed a careful kiss to her lips, she could not help but smile and sob, thrilled and hurt and absolutely overwrought with emotions that she could not comprehend, questions that she could not answer. In her returning kiss, Maura could not help but search for those answers.


	3. Chapter 3

Jane sat down with an indignant huff and threw her hands in the air. "Maura, those idiots at the bar just bet me five bucks that I don't know all the words to 'Ten Rounds with Jose Cuervo'!"

Maura blinked at her. "I don't know that song." She bit her lip uncertainly. _Should I know that song?_

"Good thing you didn't take the bet, then," Jane said, glaring at the men on the other end of the bar. Jane would never learn to allow inconsequential things to pass without railing against them. Without so much as a second glance towards her, the detective leapt back off the bar stool and called over her shoulder as she left, "I'm gonna need you to get me some salt. And think of something you might want for five bucks."

She sauntered into the fray of clanking beer bottles and loud men, warbling horribly off-key: "Well I walked in…" 

Maura shook her head in disbelief. Jane could be incredibly graceless at times. She had invited Maura for a quiet drink at The Robber, then promptly abandoned her as soon as they walked through the door. Even Maura, reigning champion of confusing social signals, knew better than that. Still, the M.E. was optimistic; at least Jane was not avoiding her altogether after 'The Incident' in the morgue.

If anything, 'The Incident' with the liver had muted – if not erased completely – the discomfort that had infected their relationship as a result of their salacious night on the town the previous week. Work commitments had occupied both women since that afternoon, leaving little time to pick apart the meaning of the unexpected encounter in the morgue; Maura had offered no explanation for her fit of tears, and Jane had offered no explanation for the answering kisses.

Grateful that Jane was reestablishing their daily routines, Maura marooned her confusion in a sea of relief; she eagerly threw herself into helping Jane recreate a sense of normalcy between them and pushed all memories of the week before to the farthest reaches of her mind. If that's what it would take to maintain a friendship with Jane, Maura was ready and willing to put questions of something more aside and focus on routine. Maura loved routine, thrived on it.

She listened to the detective plod her way through another three bars of some country artist's lies about an evening out. Really, she did not see how anyone could have imbibed so many ounces of alcohol, avoided alcohol poisoning, _and_ have remembered to write a song about the experience. Watching Jane point her fingers incriminatingly at each of the men before launching into the next verse, Maura decided that some mysteries were not worth exploring. She took a delicate sip of her beer and sat back to enjoy the rest of the show.

_Routine_. Routine had dominated so much of Maura Isles' life, had forced it into so many compartmentalized boxes, each neatly labeled and placed on shelves of her heart and brain so far apart that she rarely wanted to mix them anymore. Somehow Jane did not fit into her routines – not in a neat, tidy way, at least. Pieces of Jane ended up on every shelf, in every box, until Maura was so inundated with Jane that she had no choice but to open all parts of herself to the other woman. Together they had created a new set of routines: disorganized, chaotic, messy ones that delighted and terrified Maura in equal measures.

For six uncertain days during which she had experienced symptoms of acute stress disorder, she had missed their routines. The reappearance of those routines the day after her breakdown in Jane's arms brought with them the lightness that followed Jane everywhere, forcing its way into Maura's structured life without preamble.

Nowhere was that light so bright as when Jane was winning a bet, Maura thought as Jane slammed a triumphant fist down on her dissenters' table. She sang the last line in a particularly off-key howl as the rest of the bar cheered, then collected her five dollars and strutted back to the bar where Maura sat smiling at her.

"I've decided what I want for your five dollars," Maura declared. She pointed to a bottle of top-shelf_ a__ñejo._

"Uh, sure. Okay." Jane waved the bartender over and ordered two of the same.

"Did you know that there are over one hundred and thirty species of the agave plant in Mexico, but only one is used for the production of tequila?" Maura said, noting the generosity of the bartender's pour. She slid a twenty into his hand before Jane could retrieve her wallet, then nodded towards the tip jar when Jane offered her the hard-earned five. "Also, tequila was the first drink to be distilled and commercially produced in North America."

"You know, Maura," Jane said, propping her face on a folded hand and giving her a full smile, "this is absolutely the most fascinating lecture you've ever given me. You have my complete attention." That smile – that voice! – made the M.E.'s heart pound in an uncomfortable thrum of arousal, one that she did her best to quell before it dilated her pupils, caused her to flush, and gave her away.

Maura could see, however, that it was not her informative trivia that had Jane's complete attention, but rather certain parts of her anatomy that drew the detective's eyes away from hers and perceptibly downwards. She had not expected this turn of events. She hadn't even hoped for it, and yet here it was: a blush creeping conspicuously down her blouse, and Jane's eyes marching after it.

Maura had to stop it, had to cling to the routine, ever her life raft in uncertain times. They had only just repaired the last fracture in their friendship. She gave Jane what she hoped would be a distracting smile and handed her the salt. "NaCl for you."

"Thanks," Jane said, eyes flitting away from Maura's breasts. Maura watched her fidget with the hem of her jacket, pick lint out of her pockets, then push a hand through her hair, all before turning her gaze on Maura. Fidgeting, picking – trademark signs of nervousness, Maura had read once.

She felt unease blossom within her own chest, but bolstered herself and asked, "Is there something wrong?"

"No," Jane said with a quick shake of her head. She nodded, as if congratulating herself on a heretofore silent decision, and said with newfound confidence, "Now just give me one of your hands for a minute…"

"What? Oh!" Maura gasped as Jane grabbed her left hand, generously salted the skin covering her opponens pollicis and abductor pollicis brevis, and ran her tongue languorously over the tense muscles there. Then, with a wicked gleam in her eye, Jane squeezed the captured hand and tossed back her well-earned shot of tequila.

_The routine!_ Her confusion gleefully escaped its island and rampaged through the now dread-filled waters of her mind, the life raft of routine floating further and further away from Maura. She would drown in this if Jane did not give her a bit of direction.

Maura sat, mouth agape in what she knew was an embarrassing display of bewilderment, and looked from her hand, then to Jane – now humming her pleasure at the tequila sliding down her long throat – and back to her hand. Though she knew it was medically impossible for saliva to ignite skin cells, Maura was positive that her hand was aflame. Warmth radiated from the point where Jane's tongue had assaulted her up to the crook of her elbow, leapfrogged across her shoulders, and settled treacherously in her cheeks.

_Confusion it is, then,_ Maura thought. _Jane_ _obviously has no care for routine._

But Maura had already known that. It was what had allowed the detective to infiltrate her life so completely, and what now allowed Jane to wrap her long fingers more securely around Maura's and to give her a tug in the direction of the door.

"C'mon, Doc," Jane said, towing her off her stool completely. "We need to talk."

Maura settled herself carefully on the couch, conscious to leave a comfortable space between her knees and Jane's. The nearness of the other woman made her head swim, and if their mostly silent journey to Maura's house was any indication, this was to be a night of cautious and measured conversation. She needed her wits about her to successfully interact with Jane Rizzoli.

"That whole thing in the morgue… What was that about, Maura?" Jane asked softly. Maura knew by the tremble of her voice that Jane was handling her as gently as she was able. It was a strain for Jane to dig under her rough exterior and put away her brash bluntness; the care with which Jane had asked the question was not lost on Maura.

She hoped to respond to that care with an appropriate degree of grace and couth. She owed Jane the truth, but she had to be careful about it; it would not do to reveal too much, or the wrong thing, and risk losing Jane once again. After all, routines were at stake and Jane was her routine now. She needed that routine.

"I was experiencing symptoms of alexithymia," Maura blurted before she could stop herself, then covered her traitorous lips with a slight hand. The faux pas that had been chasing her all evening had finally arrived. She took a deep breath between wavering fingers and waited for Jane to bolt.

Instead, Jane twisted her features and slid closer on the couch. "Alexiwhat?"

Maura sighed and dropped her eyes to her lap where her hands were smoothing the pleats of her skirt. When Jane put her mind to it, she could get straight to the point and not dance about; Maura could learn things from her.

"I have Asperger's syndrome."

It was such a rare occurrence to say it aloud. As Maura felt the weight of her confession slide off her shoulders, a new worry pressed up her spine to settle there: what would Jane think of her now?

"God, Maura," Jane said, drawing her eyebrows together in what Maura assumed to be concern. She placed a hand over Maura's folded ones and gave a gentle squeeze. "It's not fatal, is it?"

A relieved chuckle rang out from Maura's mouth. "No. No, not fatal." _Confusing? Painful? Constantly demanding attention, effort, and extensive thought? Certainly._

Jane withdrew her hands and the crease between her eyebrows deepened. "Well, what the hell does it mean?"

"I'm on the Autistic spectrum. I am a high-functioning autistic; Asperger's syndrome is the particular classification of the neurodevelopmental disorder."

A new look swept over Jane's face now, one that tightened her features around the eyes and drew sharp lines of pensiveness around her mouth. Maura had seen that look before, first on her parents when she was diagnosed as a child, then on a select few other faces over the years. Jane was reconsidering every interaction that they had ever had, every socially awkward moment that Maura had perpetrated. She was putting puzzle pieces together that Maura would rather remain disparate and disjointed.

"You're autistic," Jane repeated. She peered out between long, dark eyelashes, her gaze unrelenting.

Maura, feeling her confusion threatening once again, trudged on in an effort to accomplish the conversation and move into safer waters. "Yes."

"And what," Jane started, closed her mouth, thought for a moment, then continued, "what exactly is your syndrome? I mean, what are the effects?"

That was safer. That was _routine_. Maura could describe the clinical body of evidence surrounding AS with as much speed and accuracy as she could list the seasons associated with each pair of heels in her closet, or name the bones of the body, or parse out the precise colors of Jane's hair under the harsh fluorescents of the morgue.

_Perhaps I'd better keep that last one to myself_, Maura thought ruefully.

"Hello? Earth to Doctor Isles?" Jane said, waving a hand in front of her face, breaking her reverie.

"Asperger's syndrome is characterized by a delayed development of cognitive and language abilities. Those diagnosed with AS often exhibit above-average intelligence – "

Jane rolled her eyes.

" – and an inordinate fascination with details."

"So those 'rust-colored stains'… Your inability to lie, all of it comes down to this syndrome?"

_She's rethinking every conversation we've ever had, _Maura thought, and sighed again.

"Not all of it. But the data does suggest that certain behaviors are to be expected."

"That doesn't explain the morgue, Maura," Jane pointed out. She slid even closer on the couch, touching her left knee to Maura's right. She slipped a tentative hand over Maura's shoulder and gave a reassuring squeeze that sent a tingle of desire up Maura's neck.

Biting back a sigh of pleasure, Maura continued.

"I have difficulty interpreting emotions – both my own and those of other people. Alexithymia, from the Greek – " She stopped herself. Jane didn't need to know the etymology. "A neurologically typical person is able to interpret the emotions of other people based on facial expressions and body language. It is a skill that most children develop naturally. Those on the Autistic Spectrum have extreme difficulty reading body language, and therefore are virtually unable to interpret what other people think and feel."

"I don't understand. You were dealing with a dead body down there, Maura. What was there to interpret?"

"You, Jane!" Maura exploded, the hurricane of uncertainty, trepidation, and unrequited want getting the better of her. Then, quietly: "I couldn't interpret you."

Fingering the neckline of Maura's sweater, Jane said, "It wasn't about the missing liver, then. It was about what happened… before."

"Nonverbal communication plays a vital role in the development of healthy interpersonal relationships, Jane," Maura said slowly, hoping that this time her voice would remain steady enough to finish. "Your body language in the car that night indicated that you wanted me. You said as much, in fact – but you weren't sober." _There. What a terribly sad admission._ She searched the other woman's face for any sign of understanding, but found only an unyielding expression that signified she should continue. "You left me. I didn't know why."

Maura saw no sign of Jane's trademark confidence now. She saw only softness on those dark features, softness and an indiscernible _something_ that lingered in the depths of her brown eyes. Though she was unable to describe the exact emotion racing through her, causing her heart to beat wildly against Jane's palm now resting next to her jugular vein, Maura was reasonably certain that it was something akin to terror. She had to finish. She had to reestablish the routine and escape this flailing, drowning moment.

"I misinterpreted what you wanted, and I'm sorry," she said in a rush. "I was sick with worry thinking that I had lost you. When I saw you…" Maura hesitated. "I don't know, Jane. I thought I'd lost you, and I couldn't bear it. You're the best friend I've ever had and I thought that I had ruined that."

"I left because I couldn't stand that you didn't want me." Jane's voice came out in a crippled husk. Her fingers tightened painfully around Maura's collar bone before dropping away into her own lap.

And there it was, the damning gulp of confusion that would surely drown Maura if she did not have an answer to her question immediately: "What do you mean? Of course I wanted you. I wouldn't have kissed you otherwise."

Jane released a puff of air through pursed lips. "You didn't want to sleep with me."

"Really, Jane, at least I have an excuse for my daftness," Maura teased, then grew serious again. "I did explain to you the next morning that while I may have wanted to – "

"No. You never said you wanted to. You said you kissed me, and that you didn't want to take advantage of me."

In all of her social foibles and miscommunications over the years, never once had Maura found such a source of consternation as she did in that moment with Jane. Could Jane truly be saying that she had run away because she believed Maura was an unwilling participant in their more-than-friendly encounter? Had she become so focused on picking apart Jane's emotions that she had neglected displaying her own to the other woman? It seemed their moments together were always vanishing into the horizon, never able to fully unfold.

"You have to understand, Jane, that I need signals – I need absolute confirmation before I can commit myself to a course of action. The signals that you gave me that night… They were reasonably clear. But I needed to hear it from you," Maura said softly.

"Maura, why didn't you tell me?" Even Maura could hear the concern lacing Jane's words. "Why didn't you tell me that you're autistic?"

"It isn't something that I typically discuss," Maura admitted with a self-deprecating smile. "Are you upset?"

"No, honey, it just wasn't… I just didn't expect it, you know?"

Maura felt Jane's eyes upon her, but couldn't bring herself to look at the other woman. A tense silence settled over them during which the M.E. cautiously picked her way through what Jane had said. Maura had misread the signals in the car the morning afterwards; she had assumed that Jane would be pleased that they hadn't slept together, when in reality Jane had been – Jane had been what? Hurt? _Yes_. Jane had been hurt that she had offered herself up and Maura said no. The realization smacked into her brain another pertinent question.

"Why did you kiss me in the morgue, Jane?"

"It felt like the right thing to do."

"Is it still?"

Maura raised her gaze and looked at Jane steadily. She saw the questions in those dark eyes. The lines of that face would be her routine, her life raft in uncertainty. Given the opportunity, she would trace those lines with subtle fingers, as frequently as possible, until the emotions that hid behind those sharp plateaus revealed themselves to her.

"Yes," Jane said, and suddenly all of the questions were answered. Maura felt the sea of doubt drain quickly out of her as she leaned forward and kissed Jane.


	4. Chapter 4

Sequel in the works! "Regarding the Covers" chapter 1 posted; this will likely be the final chronological part of this story. Enjoy and thanks for reading!


End file.
